INQUIZZITIVE

DEREK BRIEN

Derek O'Brien

Aheli Gupta has a serious complaint. Apparently, a question that she had sent in was erroneously credited to someone else in this column, a few weeks back. Sorry Aheli! Please do keep sending in your questions — we promise to publish the next good question you send in. Interestingly, while on the topic, a number of inventors have supposedly been credited with certain inventions that were not theirs. Many still question whether it was Marconi who invented the radio or was it Tesla. The telescope, though often credited to Galileo, is believed to have been Hans Lippersheys invention. The list goes on. Now, was it Dom Pérignon who invented sparkling wine or Benedictine Monks over a century earlier? Was Robert Peary the first to reach the North Pole or was it Frederick Cook?

YOUR QUESTIONS

1. Which snake possesses the longest fangs in the world?

Supratim Purkayastha, Calcutta

2. Who is the oldest man to have held the boxing World Heavyweight Champion title?

Sanjay Bose, Calcutta

3. Other than George Bernard Shaw, who is the only other person to have won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize?

Saptarshi Paul, Calcutta

4. Who composed the Priyadarshini raga as a tribute to Indira Gandhi after she passed away?

Goutam Pandey, Calcutta

5. Who is the first non-American to be appointed a director to the Bank of America Corporation?

Arindam Bhattacharjee, Calcutta

6. Who was the chief guest at the 63rd Republic Day Parade of India in 2012?

Dincheng Tamang, Darjeeling

7. In 2012, the World Health Organisation officially declared India free of which disease?

Sourjya Sarkar, Calcutta

8. Which freedom fighter wrote the book Unhappy India?

Soumendu Ganguli, Calcutta

9. The role of which comic book superhero has been played by actors Lou Ferrigno, Eric Bana and Edward Norton?

Arpan Dutta, Calcutta

KNOW & GROW WITH DEREK

Alfred Nobel, the creator of dynamite, got the idea of establishing the Nobel Prize after a French newspaper mistakenly ran his obituary, while it was his brother who had passed away, with the scathing headline The merchant of death is dead.

ANSWER & WIN

In the stalk of which plant did Prometheus carry the fire when he stole it from Zeus’ hearth to gift it to mankind?

For Answer and Win, send a quiz question of your own along with the answer. The prize will go to the reader with the correct answer and the best question. Send in answers with your full name and address to: graphitiquiz@gmail.com"